"Of All the Coffee Places in All the World" - INDIA CURRENTS (California - May 2013)

“Kya?”

“STAR-BUCKS,” my brother-in-law articulated into his mobile phone. 

The irony was delicious. We were having difficulty finding the newly opened Starbucks in Bombay, and now directory services seemed to be confused as well. In Southern California, one can’t go far before tripping over the ubiquity of Starbucks stores, where there are sometimes even three within the same city block. So, on this visit to India, why did I need to find the Bombay one so badly having never really been a fan of their beverages in the first place? I wanted to know if they sold chai. 

Yes, it was perverse. But haven’t you had a chuckle over the nomenclature employed across coffee shops in

the United States? What exactly is a chai tea latte, anyway, and do they not get that it is tautologous to say chai and tea? But I needed to find out firsthand what it would feel like to order chai at an American coffee shop in India. It was no different from the revulsion I had to overcome in taking my first yoga class ever in Los Angeles. Sweating it out Bikram-style reminds me of an episode from the erstwhile television show The Sopranos. In it, Paulie “Walnuts” Gualtieri sounds a lament as he bears witness to the dilution of Italian culture during a visit to a coffee place that is meant to stand-in for Starbucks. Colourfully, the Italian American gangster expounds: “[expletive] espresso, cappuccino. We invented this [expletive] and all these other [expletive] are gettin’ rich off it.” Paulie becomes so impassioned that he makes off with an espresso machine as his vendetta against the culture vultures. To this day while I will grudgingly admit to loving how I can now contort my body in ways I would never have dreamed possible, I still refuse to say Namaste at the end of a much-deserved and blissful shavasana.

Of course, what Mr. Walnuts gets wrong is that though the Italians may have found ways to add chic to a cup of joe, it was the Ethiopians – once embroiled in Italy’s imperial designs – who originated the brewing of the drink. And just as one might guess that the inspiration for the coffee place being derided in The Sopranos was Starbucks, there is no mistaking the similar motivation behind the green and white colour scheme of the logo for Kaldi’s, an Ethiopian coffee chain. Named for the goatherd of native legend who is said to have noticed the energizing effect of coffee bean consumption on his animals, Kaldi’s is famed for its own versions of Starbucks’ favourites. If Starbucks can serve chai, then one supposes it is fair game for Kaldi’s to rip off a Caramel Macchiato. As much as I would like to think that Kaldi’s was reappropriating from Starbucks what was really theirs to begin with, on a recent visit to Addis Ababa and because it was my first time there, it seemed wrong to sample the Ethiopian elixir at any place other than a non-descript mom and pop shop. I felt as invigorated by the experience as after a rapid fire bout of Surya Namaskars.

Despite the backhanded homage paid to it, Starbucks is still to set up its own shops in Ethiopia. But that is not to say that the Seattle-based business has not had an impact on the country both culturally and

economically. Between 2005 and 2007, a storm brewed in, shall we say, a coffee mug when the Ethiopian government alleged intellectual copyright infringement in the trademarking of coffees sold at Starbucks under such regional names as Shirkina Sun-Dried Sidamo. The capability to uniquely brand affects pricing. By adopting names associated with Ethiopia’s coffee-growing regions, for the purposes of branding, Starbucks was in a position to undercut Ethiopia’s capacity to not only name but also price their own regional products. In turn, this threatened the livelihoods of subsistence-level farmers in one of the poorest nations in the world where coffee is a major cash crop. Up against a company known for its pricy lattes, the issue was resolved in 2007 most likely to avoid a public relations fiasco. Starbucks promised greater cooperation with the Ethiopian government, but changes on the ground are yet to manifest given the ability of the large corporation to control demand. 

Starbucks has continued to court controversy internationally. In 2012, it had come to light that the company had paid no corporate taxes in the United Kingdom for three years. In response to customer outrage, the coffee chain announced that it would make good on its unpaid dues to the tune of 20 million pounds over the course of two years. Despite these issues around the globe, there is no doubt that Starbucks has iconic status globally while serving as a symbol of globalization. 

Although having set up their first shop in mainland China in 1999, Starbucks’ was late to the coffee party in South Asia. The metro hubs in India were already familiar with Costa Coffee from the United Kingdom and even The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, a business with a strong Southern Californian connection. These are in addition to such home grown chains as Cafe Coffee Day and Bru World Cafe. Nonetheless, when Starbucks finally did makes its debut as a Tata Alliance company in October 2012, its first Indian store in Bombay drew queues so long that a security guard had to effect crowd control. Since, Starbucks has gone on to open a few more shops in Bombay and Delhi, catering to the local palette with items like paneer wraps alongside muffins.

A couple of months after its Indian establishments joined the corporation’s worldwide constellation, my efforts to visit the first desi Starbucks in Elphinstone Building, a colonial era landmark, were met with failure. Finally able to make our intent understood to the directory services operator assisting us with our query, we discovered that our taxi had just overshot the location. It would take forever to manoeuvre through rush hour traffic. On this the end of my time in Bombay, the opportunity to order a chai in the land of its origins, but as translated by Starbucks, had passed me by. I could not help wondering if I had missed much while I, instead, settled for a cup of cutting tea at a local stall. 

To see the print version of this piece online, visit here. 

"The Illustrated Goan" - THE GOAN: I'm Not Here (Goa - 13 April 2013)

“What should compel me to read these comic books?” asked a middle-aged participant during a session on graphic novels at the most recent Goa Arts and Literary Festival. While one might quibble with this person’s lumping of the two genres together, what cannot be escaped is the intent to relegate the illustrated form, of any literary variety, to the domain of childhood and, therefore, childishness. What the festival participant’s question implies is that adult reading must do only with words. This attempt to empty words of their inherent magic to conjure images also indicates a failure of the imagination. Illustrated books do not simply combine script and graphics, but allow for a slippage between them, as much also of time between generations, human geographies, and within a lifetime.

Take the first block-printed evidence of Konkani. The Hortus Malabaricus, a seventeenth century treatise compiled collaboratively by the colonizing Dutch and local elites, chronicles the Malabar Coast’s flora. Its twelve volumes with descriptions in Latin, Malayalam, Arabic, and Konkanni were published between 1608 and 1703. The Konkanni contribution came from physicians Ranga Bhat, Vinayak Pandit, and Appu Bhat who worked on the project, evidencing linguistic connections between the Konkan and Malabar Coasts. Accompanying the Malabaricus’ text are drawings of plants, making it Devanagri Konkani’s first illustrated book. This February, German artist Wilhelm Bronner displayed his interpretation of illustrations from the Malabaricus in Goa, literally bridging past and present through pictures.

The present enquires of the past in the recent My Godri Anthology (2013). Written by Merle Almeida and illustrated by Nina Sabnani, the Bookworm publication may readily be taken as one for children alone. In it, a parent stitches together the saga of a storied quilt for a child. Needlework and textile patches beautifully match the theme as family histories are uncovered alongside Goa’s. The godri functions as graphic narrative, representing travelogue and legacies in need of revisiting. Goan quilting traditions, this book illustrates, are stories that require anthologizing as they range from one’s granny’s godri to, perhaps, the kawandi made by Karnataka’s Siddi women whose enslaved African ancestors were brought to Portuguese India.

Family lore is again the subject of another Bookworm production. Once Upon a Feast (2012), featuring art by Fatema Barot Mota, is inspired by an account from young writer Mia Marie Lourenc̹o’s mother’s youth. Tasked with dusting the statue of the church’s patron saint in preparation for the feast day, the little protagonist discovers too late that she’s made a mistake. Set in a South Goan village, the local narrative elevates the seemingly ordinary by interlacing dramatic development with stylised architectural and cartographic depictions, as well as rural earthiness. It is in the interstices of this pictorial storyline that the many-layered generations and interactions that constitute a community are made visible. Most emblematically, a child and parent speak to and through one another, as much within the text as outside of it, melding the authorial process with that of the readership.

Rural South Goa is also the partial geography of Savia Viegas’ graphic novellas published last year through the writer/artist’s own Saxtti imprint. Viegas’ outsider art aptly pairs with her evocative tales of characters at society’s margins. In Eddi and Diddi, named for the dogs the book is about, Viegas takes on urbanization; whereas, in Abha Nama, lecturer Abha Dias struggles with institutional hierarchy. Abha’s time in Bombay recalls Goa’s historic and diasporic connections with that city, but her name invokes religio-cultural origins not usually linked with Goa. Viegas’ visuals are both complementary and parallel to the stories, permitting the novellas to be read variedly. This exemplifies the ability of illustrated books to create multiple dimensions, beyond the limits of image or text – an adult appreciation with childlike sensibilities and vice versa.

 

The print version of this piece can be read here. For more on Bookworm, visit their site. Savia Viegas' website can be accessed here.

"Building an Identity: Book Release of The Indo-Portuguese House" - THE GOAN: Kalaa (Goa - 13 April 2013)

Aptly, the lecture drew a full house. On 30 March, 2013, those that came to hear architect Gerard da Cunha speak at Kala Academy, Panjim, found themselves in a gallery featuring paintings of colonial era architecture by Japanese artist Akeru Barros Pereira. The occasion was the release of the book The Indo-Portuguese House on which the architect and the painter collaborated.

In his talk, da Cunha sought to contextualize the book’s architectural focus within the history of Goa’s encounter with the world. Yet, the architect began with a reference to how “an arrow shot into the seas by Lord Parashuram had given rise to the land in which Goa” finds location. In employing the story of the Sanskritic figure, perhaps da Cunha’s purpose was to imbue Goa’s oceanic geography with the Indic connection of his book’s title. This overshadows the ordinary and more palpable ways in which the author does situate Goa in relation to the Konkan and Malabar coasts. For example, da Cunha mentioned the agricultural practices that relied on local ingenuity to manage irrigation through “the use of sluice gates.” Just as this would have been an expected feature along the coast, the author also illustrated how “internal courtyards were common” to the construction of pre-colonial houses in Goa, as is true of Tharavad-style homes in Kerala, for example. In both regions, large domiciles served joint families and the courtyards were communal spaces that provided privacy within the dwelling itself.

 

da Cunha theorized that with conversion to Catholicism in the Portuguese era, “women were allowed more visibility,” rendering internal courtyards obsolete. An interesting way of considering how social changes affected architecture. Nonetheless, conversion was not all-encompassing nor did it affect all levels of the socioeconomic strata equally, a theme that seems absent from the book due to its concentration on grandiose heritage homes. By the writer’s own evidence, the internal courtyards resurfaced because they were “conducive to cross-ventilation,” a decided climatic necessity. To this end, the architect’s identification of the use of taller windows and “escape vents for hot air,” more readily show how design evolved with time.

Even as da Cunha maintained that it was Portuguese colonialism that gave rise to the uniqueness of Goa’s architecture, in developing his historiography of Goa he allowed for other cultural interactions. He spoke of how the Chinese had pre-dated the arrival of Europeans to Goa by nearly a century and how travel between Lusitan colonies, in later times, expanded Goan tastes as seen in the eclecticism of furnishings and decor. For instance, a home-owner with an African connection might demonstrate this “by having a zebra worked into a tile mosaic.” East Asia, too, could be seen in the patterns of china imported from abroad. Homes of the past, then, must be viewed as a composite of the multiple influences which make them unusual, for the houses da Cunha and Barros Pereira’s book chronicle are part of a Goan legacy that connects it to a history of many strains, several of which are obscured here.

To see the print version of this piece, visit here. 

"Bronner’s Malabaricus: Turning a New Leaf" - THE GOAN: Kalaa (Goa - 2 March 2013)

Neatly arranged rows of brightly-coloured panels greet the eye, offset against the surgical theatre whiteness of the walls of the gallery. There’s an apparent science to these images that pay painterly homage to nature. “The New Hortus Malabaricus” is German artist Wilhelm Bronner’s contemporary reinterpretation of a seventeenth century botanical treatise which contains the first block-printed evidence of Konkanni in Devanagiri. Bronner was on hand to converse with visitors to the Sanskruti Bhavan art gallery at the Krishnadas Shama Central Library where his work was displayed between 19^th and 23^rd February, 2013. The exhibition was organized by the Government of Goa’s Directorate of Art and Culture.

The original Hortus Malabaricus catalogued 742 plants from the Malabar Coast. Comprising of twelve volumes with descriptions in Latin, Malayalam, Arabic, and Konkanni, it was published between 1608 and 1703. The Konkanni contribution came from the physicians Ranga Bhat, Vinayak Pandit, and Appu Bhat who were part of the team that worked on the compilation, connoting a cultural and linguistic connection to Goa within the annals of the history of science.  

Bronner’s take on the Malabaricus revisits colonial history and the power relations inherent in classification projects. In the exhibition notes, the artist states: “The scientific work has to be seen as an unusual cooperative work between the Dutch invadors [sic] and the local people. Over a period of 20 years Adrian Van Rheede, Govenor [sic] of Cochin and the Malabar Coast and Itty Atchuthan, head of the local Brahmans were constantly working together.” What made such an association “unusual”? The Dutch bested the Portuguese in Cochin in 1663, evidencing the linked histories of the European colonization of the Malabar Coast and Goa. However, the collaboration between the Dutch and the native elite, even if in the confines of a colonial hierarchy, speaks to the perpetuation of institutionalized authority. For the Dutch, Bronner muses, the Malabaricus mission provided knowledge of local medicinal flora, guaranteeing their health in a foreign land. Likewise, their native counterparts offered expertise which assured their own status would not be destabilized, Bronner adds.

Not without whimsy, the artist’s twelve comical versions of a classical illustration from the older Malabaricus render a genteel European and her infantilized attendant labourers in flamboyant colour. This irreverent departure from the solemn black and white of the Early Modern period paints the picture anew. It invites viewers to look at the botanical project for how it parallels the ordering of plants and human interactions in the convergence of science and art amidst the multiple hues of history.

The print version of this article, with many unapproved alterations, appears here. See Wilhelm Bronner's website here.